Ipob declares Python Dance anniversary September 14 as sit-at-home day to protest arrest of Owerri women

SECESSIONIST group the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) has declared September 14 as on which there will be a general strike and resistance across southeast Nigeria in response to the recent arrest of 127 female protesters in Owerri.

 

Two weeks ago, the women were arrested and on Monday last week, they were arraigned in court after they demonstrated in Owerri asking the federal government to conduct a referendum for the creation of the independent state of Biafra. They also demanded to know the whereabouts of Ipob leader Nnamdi Kanu and threatened that the 2019 general elections would not hold if the referendum was not conducted.

 

Last week, however, all the arrested women were released after the judge told the police to set them free  unconditionally after the bail application filed by the lead counsel to the women, Ejiofor Uche, was not opposed. There was no police representation in court and subsequently the bail application was granted and the women freed unconditionally.

 

Following what it described as ethnic and religious persecution, genocide and the humiliation of Igbo and Biafran people by the federal government, Ipob has declared September 14 as a day of general strike, mourning and resistance across Biafraland. Ipob publicity secretary Comrade Emma Powerful said they are aiming for a total shutdown on the day.

 

He added:  "Inhabitants of southeast/south-south Nigeria and all conscientious Biafrans living in other parts of Nigeria and the world are required to stay indoors away from work or daily business activities throughout the day of the 14th of September 2018 to register our anger and protest regarding the men and women killed at Afaraukwu in Umuahia during Operation Python Dance II on September 14 last year, those killed in Ngwa, Aba, Igweocha (Port Harcourt) and buried in unmarked mass graves as a result of unprovoked military invasion of Biafraland by the Nigerian Army. All businesses, offices, markets, schools and road transportation will be shut down for 24 hours from midnight of the 13th of September and there will be no human or vehicular movement across Biafraland.

 

"People are expected to stay at home to pray for the souls of the brave and reflect upon the bondage our land is under and any person or persons seen outside on the 14th of September 2018 will be classed as an enemy of the people. We shall also remember all those killed in the struggle for the restoration of Biafra independence since August 2015 when the army shot dead Mr Okafor in Onitsha on a peaceful march from Nkpor to Onitsha main town.

 

"Their sacrifice will neither be forgotten nor will it be in vain because come what may, this generation of Ipob must and will restore Biafra. The sacrilegious and disgraceful humiliation of Igbo women, some of them great grand-mothers, ranks as one of the most abominable act of desecration ever visited upon the land of Biafra in recorded history and it will mark the defining event that completed the shame and humiliation of the Igbo race.”

 

"The cowardice and impotency of Igbo socio-political and cultural leadership in the face of such humiliation by a single Fulani police officer in Owerri is confirmation, if one is needed, that the southeast and south-south regions are conquered territories and vassal colonies of the Sokoto caliphate."

 

Mr Powerful said that the sit-at-home is the only way Biafrans can honour their fallen brethren and legitimately remind their northern oppressors and their collaborators that enough is enough. He added that they do not want another Operation Python Dance or another mass murder of Biafra agitators or humiliation of their mothers, so need to stand strong.

 

"What happened at Afaraukwu, the desecration of house of a traditional ruler, the slaughter of innocent men and women, the wholesale massacre along the Ngwa segment of Enugu-Igweocha (Port Harcourt) Expressway, countless number of mass graves across Biafraland, is repulsive, inhumane, barbaric and worthy of total condemnation by all right thinking people. We await the day United Nations and other world bodies will give the issue of Biafra the same level of prominence it is giving Rhohingya," Mr Powerful added.

 

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